


Mercedes McNab and Jane Espenson Q&As

by yourlibrarian



Series: Convention Write Ups [3]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Conventions, Gen, Nonfiction, Transcribed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:47:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29870061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: Panels at the James Marsters Con at the Queen Mary in Long Beach.
Series: Convention Write Ups [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196066
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Mercedes McNab and Jane Espenson Q&As

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted September 13, 2006

Mercedes brought her half-Chihuahua, half-Pomeranian dog Hercules up on stage with her for it (he hung around in her purse the rest of the weekend). He was completely adorable, very still and quiet, even while perched on her lap as she gesticulated and shifted.

Her Q&A was very short, about 20 minutes though scheduled for an hour. She played with her dog, or her hair, or drank her coffee and she seemed either bored or just ill at ease, so her responses weren't always the most encouraging.

She was asked how she got the role on Buffy and she said like just about every other girl in Southern California she had auditioned for the lead, but later was brought back for the part of Harmony.

Asked whether she preferred working on Buffy or Angel, she said Angel had an older cast. She had started on Buffy when she was 16, but she liked both and really couldn't choose a side.

Asked if she enjoyed doing stunts for "Harm's Way" she said she usually wasn't allowed to do stunts, but did some and had once hit Sarah Thompson by accident. Mercedes was nearly crying she was so upset, but Sarah was a real trooper and was very "No, it was ok, I was really in the moment!"

Asked if she ever researched roles, she said it depended on the role. For example on Buffy all she needed to do was be a teenager and every high school had a Harmony.

What were the best and worst things about playing Harmony? The worst was always wearing heels. She didn't like them and always avoided it otherwise. The best was making people laugh.

The MC broke in to ask if, as her father had been an English soccer player, she felt an obligation to cheer for his former team. She said she had to yes, and all her family was in England now except for her.

What was her favorite and least favorite scene in Buffy or Angel? She enjoyed all of "Harm's Way" as it was "all about me." Her least was in "Harsh Light of Day" when Spike threw her against the wall. She found she had a deep emotional reaction to it and it upset her.

I got the chance to ask her what she felt was Harmony's most redeeming quality as a character. She said that it was that ignorance was bliss. Harmony just got to say things that people might think. She wasn't necessarily intending to be mean when she said things but was just saying what she thought and you couldn't get angry at the character for telling the truth.

The most awkward question came next when she was asked what it was like to have a relationship with James, and she asked what the questioner meant. The questioner then asked about kissing James, and she maintained she didn't know what was meant by that. There was just an uncomfortable standoff for a bit, but she finally said that it was no big deal, it was just something you had to do. She did feel uncomfortable though when her father would see those sort of scenes.

Asked what she liked about Canada versus the U.S. she said that Canada just smelled cleaner, that the air was different there than in California unless you were somewhere like Tahoe or Arrowhead. She also loved being able to get salt and vinegar chips there.

Asked if she ever went online to read what people were saying about her or the show she said she had once or twice but it was better for the ego not to.

She was asked in what ways she was most and least like Harmony. She said that hopefully she wasn't mean, though she can be out of sorts and have her blonde moments, but hopefully she isn't as shallow.

Asked about working on "Hatchett" with Tony Todd she said Tony went on and off set for just a day or two whereas she spent 6 weeks in the forest (in, I gathered, not the most comfortable of working conditions).

Next up was Jane Espenson, who was a rather marked contrast to Mercedes. She seemed as delighted to be there as she claimed (I was struck by how many photos we got of her laughing). She started out by running through some of the shows she worked on and mentioning the show she was on now for "Andy Barker, P.I.", explaining the concept of an accountant who gets mistaken for a P.I. and gets sucked into it.

Jane's first reply was to whether she'd prefer to write for a classic TV drama or sitcom. She wavered on that but decided that you could always put comedic elements into a drama so that would probably be her choice.

Is it hard to hand in a script over to an unfamiliar director who may change it? Not for her. She feels as if her job is done when she turns in the script, although most writers do mind. She said as far as she was concerned the entire episode could consist of a close up of the script with the pages slowly turning!

Is it different writing for Joss than other people? Yes, so different. Joss breaks a story for you, works with you, whereas others are likely to take a story from you rather than help you through it. Showrunners want different things though. Ron Moore on BSG likes surprises and if you come up with something he likes he will change future scripts to follow up on or build on what your surprise was.

How did personal stuff from actors' lives get into scripts? She didn't know they did, although she said being able to write for TV was a real advantage in that you knew about the people who would be acting it out. You could draw on physical characteristics, such as Boreanaz's brow. Given an example about William in "Fool For Love" she said it was probably just a writer hearing a good idea and saying "I can use that!"

What does she like to write more, humans like the Gilmore Girls or monsters? To her monsters are people, it doesn't matter as long as they have a character. "If they just go grr argh, it's not so much fun."

Did she like writing for Giles? She loved writing for Giles, and undercutting his cool facade. He has "hearth fires" underneath and she liked bringing that out.

Why does she post about her lunches on her blog? The person who does her website, Polgara, when they were putting together her blog had billed it as Jane posting about writing and what she had for lunch, meaning "anything and everything." Jane liked that line and decided to do so literally.

A question about whether or not the audience always got what they intended, and she said not always. For example the whole Spike getting a soul thing was never meant to be as misleading as it was. They wanted the soul to be a surprise but the line "Slayer's going to get what she deserves" always meant the soul, so that Buffy could have a better man. "I think we made our task of redeeming Spike much harder than it had to be."

Possibly missed a question here because the next one was mine. In one of her blog posts she had mentioned she was getting too theoretical and big picture-y post-Worldcon and was going to get back into practical advice. I asked how much that reflected writing work in general, how much attention ends up getting focused on little tricks and practical matters as opposed to pondering larger issues about what a story is saying and what type of story is being told? She said that there was something to that, that in writing it is largely about the craft of it rather than the overarching ideas, although part of why she did that in the blog is that she had envisioned it as a real nuts and bolts sort of deal, and was afraid that if "I get too high flying I lose people." I asked if the preponderance of practical matters has to do with the time pressures TV writers face but she thinks that it would be true regardless.

Asked if she was ever blocked by her own feelings when writing a story, she said she didn't have time but had to forge ahead so it could be a positive thing.

Asked about her thoughts on the existence of the Slayage con and Buffy studies she said that it is both really cool and at the same time kind of ridiculous. Although there were meaningful things intended by the show and important themes, at the same time a lot of stuff just happened on the fly and had meta reasons for being in there.

Asked about her linguistic background and when she took a turn into screenwriting, she said she had always wanted to be a screenwriter but couldn't figure out what to do in college, and that linguistics ended up leading her back into writing.

Asked about the editing work she did in "Finding Serenity" she said she just wrote the intro, and did no editing. However she thinks that was good because she disagreed with some of the essays but thought all of them were very interesting, and if she had been editing she probably wouldn't have included the ones she disagreed with. However they had all been chosen already.

Asked what she has discovered about herself from her writing she says she does so all the time. In BSG for example she had a lot of freedom in what she could do and realized that scenes would surprise her because she'd be finding out what she thought about different issues in the process of writing the story.

Is it easier to write in a show that has an established mythology or one which allows her to make stuff up? Easier on a show with history, you don't have to invent so much and there's a lot to explore.

Asked about what happened with "Jake in Progress" she said that it wasn't going to be picked up but because the "Emily" show was being put on the schedule Jake was was going to be aired as a counterpart, the idea of 2 young, urban singles as a focus for the hour. But Emily ended up being a very quick disaster and took Jake down with it. Although the network liked what they saw in Jake they had no space for it on the schedule after Emily bombed, and not until the start of this season was it officially cancelled. She mentioned there was some other show with Emily in the title that changed the name so as not to be associated with the failed Emily.

Hollywood has so much talent yet there's so much crap on TV, why is this? Jane said the most interesting pilots often don't get made due to the networks' fear of quirkiness. Quirky shows can draw intense viewership but it's often a small group and networks can't make money on them.

Is there something about shows that makes it likely to draw intensity or popularity? I think Jane went on a tangent here as she talked about how you don't always know how shows are going to turn out. She now has a better understanding of it than she used to. She used "Shindig" as an example of how what she put on paper came to the screen exactly as she had imagined it. One that wasn't was where she was rewritten a lot, perhaps like "Band Candy" which was done when she was new.

As she had to wrap up for the Commentary she left the stage urging people to read the Prisoner of Trebekistan as she was a character in it. (I notice Joss did a blurb for it as well).


End file.
